


Sodom and Gomorrah

by coffinofachimera



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bible verses, Biblical References, Blasphemy, Bottom Harry, Crying, Dark Imagery, Demons, Guardian Angels, Harry-centric, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Poetry, Religion, Religion Kink, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism, Smut, Soulmates, Top Louis, desecration of religious objects, motel sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:07:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8251906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffinofachimera/pseuds/coffinofachimera
Summary: When Harry was born he was given a guardian angel who protected him from the devil's will and guided him on his path to God. Until one day they disappeared, leaving Harry to grow alone as a man belittled in the name of his faith.On the day before his wedding, his angel returns.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There is poetic phrasing. I think it is a bit dark. There are some Latin phrases. I hope they are accurate. I hope you enjoy the story!

There was a thought Harry had on the subway, spawned in some half-joke conclusion on a cold west-coast evening, that at the next station he would be stepping foot into a psychological genesis. Book 1, chapter 1, verse 1— his life would begin anew and his sorrows would cease to be. The power of suggestion and not the one of God for a change. That sounded promising. Harry was looking out the motion blur of the train and imagining a rewind in the vacuum of humanity. At least his own. If he could prelude into another person, then that would be just fine. If he could stop people from asking, "Are you alright?" then that would be just fine. Dandy; fun and fancy free. Harry doesn't know if he really believes that people die only once.

The train makes stops at every station. People come and they go, and it keeps smelling different with the shuffling density of passengers. It doesn't smell awful yet. America— it's a new smell. A lot is new. New messages and missed calls he's been avoiding with a shut off cellphone. Harry hopes no one worries. He'll be back by tomorrow in time for everything due to be set in stone. The train stops. The crowd adjusts. Back on their way they go. After this one it's Harry's turn to get off.

But mindlessly eyeing the crowd, there's a familiar face he'd never expected to see there.

Standing in the crowd he sees a man. Lithe and short in height. Tight-fitted football jersey, rustled brown hair with a fringe just above his eyes. For a moment Harry's thinking something rational. The first being that that isn't real. But it's discarded quickly. And like the pious parishman Harry is, he stands up from his chair, his eyes widening as he rushes to close the difference between him and the man. A faster heart, a heavier head. Apologizing his way through the crowd, squeezing himself through every way. And he's right there, just feet before the hidden figure with only two people standing between them.

“Eulaluis?”

But he's gone. One move of a passenger and Harry's looking at a metal wall. It's embarrassing spinning around in circles to an audience already eyeing him unkindly, so Harry's quick to head back to his seat with his face red in embarrassment. Someone's taken his seat once he gets there. Now he's confined to stand. Looking out that same motion blur out the train and thinking of things that don't exist. Because he has to think about it. Harry looks back at the spot on the train where he last thought he'd seen an angel. And that's helpless. That's naive. And it only serves to cloud his mind and disorient him into a familiar malaise.

Harry forgets to get off at his station. More stops pass by and he forgets to pay attention. By the time he does remember, he walks out from the underground and steps into a city he's never seen before. That's no genesis, no real exodus, or apocalypse. He's just lost, and thinking about if he should settle for a hotel here or journey off on a travel back from where he came. It's always about that. Harry doesn't know what he wants anymore, or what he'd actually intended on doing today in the first place. But it'll come back to him in the hours or the days. It'll come back. Every day all he wants is what's harder to find than he'd thought.

A change. A revelation to pierce through stone until it all crumbles. Birth or no birth, death or no death. A difference. Before, things used to make a difference. Now it's all the same.

Because God is clean.

Because he never gets his hands dirty. He carries a pen and a clipboard and a coin purse for every death he forgets to put in its place. Pennyless, soul-less father in a clouded paradise no one can claim they've seen. Not really, never sincerely. What good is the Holy Spirit if you never hear it speak? Gospel. And then that angry thunder that only comes after the lightning you never asked for. God never speaks because he has nothing to say. And Harry feels his bones crushing under the decay of emotion that overstays its welcome. Never welcome. No assistance, only dust in the place where a trinity should keep no distance. Cinder blocks and locks rusting because a key was never made. No escape. With no charitable donation of relief all there is is weight packing and unpacking with no pattern. What futile outcomes for answers die inside of Harry he leaves abandoned in hopes that any such father, son or glowing dove will want to save in spite. But not even a glance is pulled from the billfold. A three part father with no thought, and hands that only hold the water he'll use to kill his children in another holocaust.

 

 _O Holy Angel,_  
_attendant of my wretched soul_  
_and of mine afflicted life,_  
_forsake me not, a sinner,_  
_neither depart from me for mine inconstancy._  
_Give no place to the evil demon to subdue me_  
_with the oppression of this mortal body;_  
_but take me by my wretched and outstretched hand,_  
_and lead me in the way of salvation._  
_O holy Angel of God,_  
_the guardian and protector_  
_of my hapless soul and body,_  
_forgive me all things_  
_whatsoever wherewith I have troubled thee,_  
_all the days of my life,_  
_and if I have sinned in anything this day._  
_Shelter me in this present night,_  
_and keep me from every affront of the enemy,_  
_lest I anger God by any sin;_  
_and intercede with the Lord in my behalf,_  
_that He might strengthen me in the fear of Him,_  
_and make me a worthy servant of His goodness._

_Amen._

 

Eulalius never used doors. The first time Harry saw them, they were bent over his toy box in 2001 trying to figure out what to make of their first ever human patient. Eulalius wasn't a person then. They didn't talk the way people talked. Divinity transcends human perception the way the true color palette of the planet hides outside the ocular range of man. If time stopped and God could kiss you goodbye before lightning struck down on your body and devastated your tissue starting from your middlemost inside, that's what having a guardian angel felt like. All children are born angels. Of the ones Satan bookmarks in the womb for later merchandising God says to his infantry, _This one, watch this one. You watch out for your own._ God was goodness to Harry then. Charitable and watchful of the world he forgets sometimes. Harry was a correct Catholic. Eulalius was sent to preserve that from an observant, evasive distance. Guardian angels are never meant to get close. Mercy wasn't practice. U- _law_ -lee-us; meaning, "well spoken". Which came as an irony since the angel never spoke. Not at first. When Harry asked them their name, they made the mistake of answering.

Harry started calling them Eulaluis a little while after he learned to talk right— U- _law_ -loo-is. The little boy was always around too many people for the angel to speak a correction. So Eulaluis they stayed. A more catered, customized thing now. Bit by bit the angel molded even more to their child— God's child, in fact. But Eulaluis was so conflicted about that. That Harry could belong to Him and not them. Why would he be? Why should he be? Harry was an angel to his own diverging angel. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten— throughout the years Harry always talked about them. His guardian angel, his once elusive Eulaluis. It was a Catholic academy in a Catholic society so of course they believed him, of course they envied him for being so beloved by God that he gave him a palpable bit of heaven. And Eulaluis basked in that praise in a schematic ego— a thing _not_ of God. The angel liked the attention as they sat by invisible or flew by manifested as a bird or a butterfly or a single gust of wind slithering through the crowd. 'They' and then a 'he'. Harry had someone to play with. Eulaluis had a life he felt could be his own.

 _Feeling_ ; A simulated body that aged parallel to his boy; pre-pubescent sans the wings. Standing on two feet and wearing a face he rendered with the power God gave him for His agenda, not to satisfy the will of his amorphous servants. Harry seldom mentioned God. Eulaluis was supposed to correct him but he guarded silence the way he used to. Before he became so chatty, so boisterous in the shape of a boy. Harry grew and his angel grew with him like a person. Eulaluis, that formless spirit— now a boy, damn him. Son of a bitch. Personified. Blue eyes that were narrow and drooped downwards from his growing eyebags, his reddening waterline. Getting louder, getting fatter. He didn't shine as bright as he used to, even when he went back to being a beam of light the way God sent him down as for work. Harry made his godliness dingy like car fumes to a good tree. Where was the bird? The butterfly? His wings were gone because his feet kept touching the ground. He didn't want Harry bending his neck all the time. But Harry wasn't good enough to be so equal. He wasn't good enough to get so close. And Eulaluis was a cheater, then. A wingless, crouched-down liar with an accent he stuck with and skin he never took off.

Until he did. Backed away; 'they' again. Scolding Harry with a prayer and a voice that stopped coming with a body until there wasn't a voice at all. And Harry stopped knowing where to look except up. Turned to God with palms pressed together and knees that struggled to hold his growing weight. It was maddening, talking into a darkness and never hearing the echo you keep thinking will one day come. Lightning with no thunder. Grey days with no rain. Harry was sixteen and on his knees and praying to an angel that stopped having anything to say. God was even colder. Absence. Where's the line drawn between weaning and abandon? The world around Harry was below what he wanted to matter. What was supposed to. Harry was never good at being alone. Faith wasn't enough. There was a blood-bound angel he used to touch and now there was only the press of his own palm in a cold church crowded with the countless blind. And he wasn't used to it. No one eased him into it.

Now another sheep in a herd. Blind and white like the rest. Indistinguishable to his father who only touches him disparagingly, to shave off the single piece of his sheep that grows just to exercise His ability to take away and humiliate. And He keeps Himself warm with that. Not fair. Not right. Harry stopped having a voice to speak with every time he stepped into a place of worship. Silent like the dark, apathetic like his formless father who lives in an invite-only paradise. Apathetic like the guardian angel who abandoned him because they remembered Harry was too old to need protecting anymore. Too old to be precious. Too grown to deserve a careful guiding hand. Let him follow the shepherd's stick like the rest. Scurry into form with the terrifying bark of a badgering Border Collie. Let the devil come the way he'd always planned; the wolf in sheep's skin. That was the way. God's way. The way Harry became numb to by the time he reached his twenty-second birthday and it was the least amount of guests he cared to invite.

Harry wonders now if maybe there should've been less to his wedding. There is the issue of that, now. Or in fact, the solution.

To his despair, there came a deviation in his sexual character. The church parish came to say it was the devil doing his work. Anything can be achieved with enough pressure and guilt applied to a subject. It all came to hurt Harry like a brillo pad scraping into the bone. At some point he bleached the homosexuality he was told made him evil. At some point he met a nice enough girl at church the members couldn't roleplay matchmaker harder for. At some point he gave up on his happiness and satisfied his every Catholic duty with a diamond ring and a knee to the ground. Thinking, some new God-blessed happiness will come. But it never came to that. Harry just regretted what he got himself into. And at some point regret turned to a spiritual desolation. And Harry's never felt so pitted inside. He keeps thinking of all the times he should've objected and backed out of the matrimony to be. But every time, he got in his own way. Forcing himself to endure the depression in some imaginary righteousness, like God would pay him an accolade for making such a martyr of himself. He cut off all his hair for this, when it was a beautiful mane he had curling down at his shoulders. Gone with no appreciation. No acknowledgment.

"Where are you?! Are you alright?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry. I'm at a uh... I missed my stop. And I got off at the wrong station and it was quite late so I just uh... I'm at a motel."

"...Well thank God you're alright."

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I'll be back in the morning."

"Tell me the address."

There's a 4 star hotel room they've set up for him, his wife to be, and all their family. Harry stays at a motel. He's been lying in his room alone for hours he lost track of. Not that they were ever noted to begin with. There's no lights on in the night. There's no sight. All he can do is think, curled up on his mattress in his white t-shirt and boxer briefs while he alternates between Hail Mary's and Our Father's as he prays his way down his rosary bead to reel him back from a nervous breakdown. A woman will leak her way into everything now until death do them part. How quick should death come? Harry lets himself roll onto his back, the rosary in his hands giving a jingle. With the turn of his head he can see out the window; some nighttime view with city lights and scenery out into some valley. It's such an expensive wedding. Took the overseas trip. Everyone will hate him if he backs out. Better it's only he who hates himself— better he unhappy than the rest. It'll be forever, tomorrow morning. What a horrible, horrible mistake.

"Hail Mary full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." His fingers trace to the next bead, his forty-fifth. Looking up into the ceiling he goes on whispering rushed under his breath. "Hail Mary full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of—"

_Knock knock knock_

Harry turns his head to the motel door. Someone's there. His heart stops for just a second, dreading if it's one of his in-laws come to the rescue. He just wants to be alone. He stays quiet, rolling his thumb and index finger over the same prayer bead as he holds his breath. The lights are out. No sound. Hopefully the whoever will think he's asleep.

_Knock knock knock_

Harry moves until he's sitting at the edge of the bed, staring attentively at the door as he digs his toes into the carpet. He puts his rosary back over his head, in its rightful place around his neck and under his shirt. Expecting a voice or maybe some chatter. But there's nothing. He looks at the digital clock on his bedside. 3:01am. One minute into the witching hour.

Suddenly he hears a click— a button. The room fills with a weak light from a source that comes behind him. _Who did that?_ Someone is in the room and Harry's heart stops. He shoots a daunted look past his shoulder to the bedside lamp. And then it's terror, maybe. He can't feel his heart beating— only nausea and a sharp shiver down his spine. His eyes wide.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

He never used doors.

"Hello, Harry."

And there's no speech Harry can make, muster, imagine. His body is hot and his heart feels like it's boiling in the boned convex it beats inside.

Looking bigger now that he isn't on the subway and Harry's sitting down. There he stands. _Him._ Maybe coy, now, as he slowly walks around the bed with the subdued expression of happiness. A gentle smile with his gentle stride. "Look how big you've grown." _He's_ grown. Those drooping blue eyes lined with reddened shadows like he's capable of being imperfect. The sharpness of his cheekbones, the soft smirk of his thin lips.

Harry's eyes follow him as he moves towards him. And his breathing trembles in his chest, even worse tremors plaguing his hands. There isn't anything he can imagine saying or doing. He rubs his eyes with a deep breath drawn in and out. And he keeps his head there, keeps his hands over his eyes as if to test this reality. Sure enough, he hears the footsteps. Shoes on carpet. They don't disappear.

"You remember me, don't you?"

The hair on Harry's body stands when he hears him speak again. So clearly. His _voice_. And Harry starts to cry, his hands wiping his eyes for a real purpose this time. Trying to contain everything inside is making it hard to breathe. He hiccups louder than he means to, triggering a deep sob as he lowers his hands to his side.

"Why are you crying, love?"

For the first time he speaks. "I don't know... I..." But a sob keeps him from going on. Eyes shut tight as a grimace comes together and the tears are running down his red cheeks. Still won't look. Breathing comes as a labored exercise. The blood is rushing into his head. If this is all a thing of faith, if it's all a matter of his imagination.

"It's me."

"I-I know..."

And in his voice so tight and low, yet so softly, he tells him with a playful smile, "Ecce ego angelus. Noli timere." The first words he spoke to Harry when he was just a child, before he remembered to speak in English. _Behold, I am your angel. Do not be afraid._

This time Harry looks up, and it's like a blade to his strings; memory and the truth. Like if time stopped or changed or blew a fuse in its power source. He doesn't know what's pierced through him so violently or how it died, but it does in that moment. That moment Harry catches his gaze. It's then that their ranks meet and Harry finally accepts the truth. That this is reality. His icy blue eyes, his high cheekbones and chizzled jaw. That this is happening. Harry's never felt more chastened, his head falling again with a whimper.

Eulaluis, Eulaluis, _Eulaluis_.

Harry's body is trembling, his face damp and flushed from feeling. "Oh God..." And he brings his palms over his weeping eyes. It's been so long since Harry felt God this close before. There wasn't even a prayer for Him to answer so that Harry could have his guardian angel back. Forgive him for doubting, forgive him for falling into despair and straying from his faith. Harry wants to drop down to his knees and sink to what lowest place he can make of himself before the power he isn't worthy of calling his father. Turning his back. Straying from the home that made him. He doesn't know what to say, or what to do. But he hopes some punishment will come. Anything to make him feel cleansed and forgiven for real.

"You're so sad..." Standing just inches in front of Harry, the angel's hand comes down on the back of his head. And Harry lets it come forward, resting his forehead against his guardian angel's hip.

"Eulaluis."

"Don't call me that anymore."

Harry furrows his brow as he looks to the floor, confused on what he did wrong. That disapproval comes from the highest place in the world. Harry curls himself before it. "What do I—"

"Louis." Not Latin, not Hebrew. He gives a chuckle, knowing Harry's puzzled by the proposal. And he says it playfully, "Doesn't that sound much better?"

Harry feels the angel's hand come to his chin and give it a gentle lift upwards. And their eyes meet again. Feeling God all over again. The ocean and the evergreen. "Louis." He blinks away the tears welling in his eyes, sniffing.

"Yeah." The angel smiles down at him, as if asking for one back. Obedience, servitude— of course Harry responds with the softest curve of his lips. And Louis pets his cheek, wipes the tears from his face before guiding his head back down so Harry can rest his face against his body, now a few steps closer.

Devil's advocate and God forgive him— "Is it really you?" He only really dares ask because he isn't looking him in the eyes. Doesn't look like any angel. The shaggy hair and the white football jersey and the sneakers. The blasphemous nonbeliever crawls back and tells him this is all in his head. That the power he feels under his skin isn't really there. That none of this is. Lord, forgive him for doubting. Harry doesn't remember his angel ever being so close to him like this. But there's so much he forgot in heartbreak, in what he thought was abandonment. He sniffs, the tears drying finally. He keeps his hands on his lap like he's punishing himself. Keeping his distance. Like he doesn't deserve what affection he craves from the angel— an elusive breed by nature.

“I wouldn’t know how to prove it to you.” Hands cradling Harry’s head, stroking him and playing with his hair. Harry closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. If he could calm down. He doesn't know if he can. "That’s why it’s called faith, innit?"

Harry looks up at his angel just to feel small all over again. "I believe you. I have faith," he promises.

Louis's looking down on Harry so fondly, eyeing over his features as he cups his cheeks. "Well that's good," he says as he traces over them with his thumb. He looks like he's thinking. Harry's brow is furrowed just a bit in anticipation. The last thing he expects to hear is a chuckle partnered with a soft, patronizing murmur. "So you're getting married, is that right?"

Harry wishes he could look down again. But Louis keeps his palms against his face. And Harry has to look away, up at the ceiling. But some pressure is coming down on him. Like his skin is nearing a flame, or a sheet is smothering his face. And maybe that's Louis. Divine disapproval making its mark.

"Look what you've gotten yourself into. All the way out in America." Like he's amused. Not happy. Because he knows Harry isn't.

"Were you watching over me?" He's so embarrassed. "You never left me?" Witnessing Harry's every downfall, his every downward spiral because he wasn't a good enough believer. To never lose faith. To never doubt. He remembers everything. Just a little while passes in silence. And Harry's eyes come to widen when Louis whispers to him,

"You're me baby."

That's not distant. That's not imperceptible. That's intimate. Harry feels a throbbing in the back of his skull and the air in his clavicle come to a standstill as his eyes gloss over with tears. Welled, not free yet. "I am?" Red faced, furrowing his brow because he's trying not to blink.

"Of course you are."

And he looks at his angel until his reflection starts to blur behind all the water. And he has to blink, then. With his head coming down again as he stats to cry again. "I'm so stupid," comes his guilt in a choked murmur. Harry brings his shoulders up like he's trying to hide inside himself, lowering his head even more as he sniffs.

"It's alright now. Don't cry, love." He lowers himself a little to look at Harry, bringing both his hands to stroke Harry's damp cheeks. Harry looks up at him, all soaked in tears, nuzzling just a bit into Louis's hand. "Why don't you lie down? Come on, here on the bed."

Harry finds his place on the motel bed as Louis stands by. The curtains close; no one there. That was Louis. Harry sniffs and wipes his eyes, his face— calming himself down another time. Louis's taken a seat next to him on the edge of the bed, and is suddenly smoking a cigarette Harry can't remember seeing him pull out from a pack. And he watches him with a suspended, drifting expression in his puffy eyes as he lies on his back. His guardian angel takes a deep breath in until nearly half the stick has turned black and Harry's wincing just a bit. Louis pulls it from his lips and taps it down onto the clean carpet as he breathes out his tobacco smoke into the motel room. Harry can't remember how real Louis is to everyone else. The smell of cigarette, the burn mark on the carpet— if consequences are to come. Harry frowns when Louis looks relieved in exercising his injurious habit, taking a big breath of fresh air like he's doing it for the first time. He's never smoked before, that Harry can remember. He didn't know angels could.

"You'd be surprised by what happens when God's not looking." Of course he can read Harry's thoughts. He turns his head back over his shoulder to Harry, smiling as he sticks out his tongue and puts out the cigarette on the wet surface, a bit of smoke coming up. Harry scowls in disgust before laughing with Louis about it.

"Want one?" His angel offers as he holds out his packet of cigarettes. "No one can smell it."

"I don't smoke." Harry realizes there isn't a brand or a logo on the box.

"Alright."

He watches the end of the cigarette begin to burn by itself as Louis puts it between his lips. And Harry chuckles, "I don't know if I should tell you smoking is bad for you."

Louis laughs outright. "It's a tricky habit to quit."

Harry doesn't ask how he started. His guardian angel is so different from how he remembers. He remembers the slang and the Yorkshire accent, the games they played when Louis made himself a playmate and a friend. But maybe it's the current context he isn't getting around to yet. What purpose the smoking serves, why he dresses the way he does. No reason, probably. He wonders how angel's logic works. If Louis wanted to answer he would right now. But that's a secret he'll be keeping as he goes on smoking quietly. Not that an explanation matters. Harry doesn't think anything could make him forget what it is he's standing before. A real piece of heaven and one that was Harry's own— is Harry's own. Louis holds a weight that's loud and bright and it's nothing that could ever exist on Earth. Harry knows godhood when he sees it. Because he can't explain it.

He's biting at the skin around his nails. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do, or what's going to happen. But he has faith and he has patience. And from the darkness he was in just minutes ago he's now a free man. And while Louis goes on smoking, Harry reaches under his shirt for his rosary. He can't remember which bead he was on when he was praying. He grabs the crucifix between his fingers and fiddles with it. He's had since he was a child. And just as he feels it in his hands now, he wishes he could do the same with his guardian angel. Palpability— he's so needy. Everything he wants, he wants to have with him in his hands. Gluttony— that's one of the sins. He keeps forgetting.

Louis is coming over on the bed, now. It's so quiet and peaceful. Harry tucks his rosary back under his shirt and waits to see where Louis adjusts himself. It's right up against him. To Harry's right, Louis settles down on his side. And Harry holds his breath when he feels it.

"Pardon me nudity, right?"

Louis's completely naked. "It's okay." And there's a helplessly sacrilegious awareness of that. Louis probably already knows about it. Harry wants to pray for forgiveness for it already. He keeps his hands to himself to be safe, waiting for some form of disapproval expressed. But Louis just goes on smoking his new cigarette. Harry can feel his flaccid dick pressed against his thigh, the warm firmness of his bare skin. Warm like the beam of light he is.

And it's just the heat he craves, Harry tells himself, as he turns himself over just a bit so he's closer against Louis's body. Like a puppy to a parent. Harry breathes him in until he's curling up against his chest. He expects a gentle push away the way his memory tells him to. His angel is too hallowed of a being to allow a physical nexus with a mortal. His chest is toned soft and delicate, tattooed in stamps that run down his arms. Harry eyes it unlawfully, still waiting for the rejection and the reprimand so he can feel relieved and clean from sin. But instead he feels a hand on the back of his neck, scratching at the blossoming baby hairs and petting down the feathery rest.

"Go on, you can kiss me."

Kiss. Has it ever been sexual between them? Did Harry not see what sticks and twigs he tied together in the fagots that kept the burning fire of his longing alive, and form some monstrous desire for this servant of God? Maybe Harry's naive for seeing this that way. Maybe Louis doesn't. Today is the most Harry has ever felt any part of him. Any part of God. So he listens to him and follows whatever cause he means. Harry presses his face forward until his lips meet with the skin of Louis's chest. And a kiss he gives him. The first of an indulgent sequence. Those quick pecks and the tiniest hums that come with it.

Louis watches him with the slow inhale of his cigarette as he pets Harry across his cheek. Something warm and pacific in his tired eyes. He ashes his cigarette quick with a reached out arm to the carpet beside the bed. And placing it back between his lips, he slides his free hand under Harry's arm and pulls his body closer against him until there's nothing separating their bodies. Harry kisses Louis's chest open-mouthed as he breathes hard through his nose. And Louis's hand creeps under Harry's shirt as he touches up his back and rubs loving circles on his skin. The goosebumps come rising and Harry kisses over his nipple, moving himself a little on the bed so he reaches his collarbone. A sigh sets and he brings his hands up to wrap around Louis's naked waist. And Louis smiles at that, like it's what he expected.

 _Never_ felt him like this before. And that same fondling that Louis gives his back is making him overwhelmed. Crying just minutes ago, now reunited with a divine phenomenon that once hid among the light. Harry wants him closer. Every part of him still says to reject it. He's been a good Catholic for so long. A good sheep. _Is this a test?_ he wonders, but arches into Louis's touch regardless, who handles him like a wounded animal. Maybe he is.

"You've gotten big on me," Louis mumbles past his cigarette, held between his teeth. Harry likes to keep in shape but he's cursed with a slow metabolism and a generous appetite. Such an in between, he is. Lithe and soft and strong at the same time. Louis is thin and firm all over. A sportsman. A scurrying troublemaker and that's his preferred form. He takes a good puff form his cigarette, reaching out to tap the ashes on the floor as he blows out the smoke again. "You were so little last I remember you." But Harry thought he'd always been there. Now he doesn't know, nuzzling into his chest. "It's been so long, hasn't it?"

Harry hums his agreement through kisses.

"But you've got the same face. I remember. Let me see."

Harry pulls his head away from Louis's chest and rolls over on his back. There's the good view for Louis to see. Smiling down as he pets Harry's hair back.

"You're so beautiful."

And Harry, this long lost client, goes red in the face and thrilled in his loins at the attention he'd never dreamed of receiving. Those wide-spaced green eyes, his sharp straight nose, and his raspberry lips so pouty from kissing. Harry looks so sweet; silent and dazed. His heart is so weak and far. Louis holds it all, just touching him and smoking. With every word he's touching him so gently. Seductive, maybe. His hands won't stay still. Louis is transfixed. Another ash of his cigarette tapped down to the carpet.

"I always wanted to grow with you. I didn't understand that body I made meself into before." Louis's attention comes down to the center of Harry's shirt. Cigarette back in his mouth again. Hands free. He snakes his hand to the collar of Harry’s shirt and dips his fingers under the hemming, tucking out his rosary until it’s over Harry’s chest for him to see. He’s furrowing his brow, eyes narrowed and he doesn’t realize it. "I learned this time for you." Tucks the rosary back. "I learned everything. This is what you need now, innit?"

Harry feels like he's witnessing gospel. He could listen to Louis talk to him forever. And he hasn't even mentioned God. Not once.

"A man. And you, you're me little Hazza. Me little baby."

Small in soul, small because he's made himself so in sorrow. These times of need. Louis has always been a thing above. Right now Harry wants his hand under his shirt. So he lifts it, looking Louis in the eyes as he reveals his body to him. And Louis' eyes soften with a blink of light, almost. Takes a deep puff from his cigarette as he casts a heavy gaze down at Harry's body. And he blows that cloud of smoke out his nose without thinking. Again he puts the cigarette out on the surface of his tongue. And it seems to disappear without Louis really needing to throw it away. With his free hand he touches over Harry's bare stomach, his chest.

"You've got tattoos, too." Laurels on his hips, two swallows on his collarbone, a butterfly on his stomach— "I like the butterfly," he chuckles. "That's quite nice. I thought it was a moth for a second."

Harry makes a face. "Who likes moths?"

"What's wrong with moths?"

And Harry thinks for a moment, thrilled by their conversation. Grateful, humbled. "I don't know. Butterflies are prettier. You see them in the meadows."

"I think I might prefer moths."

He just nods. "Yeah." Not knowing what else to say, and hoping Louis will carry their conversation on as he touches him softly.

"You got any more tattoos?"

"Lots. I have um... " But just as he lifts his left arm to show off his anchor and his rose and his ship, something else moves in to take priority in his mind. "You haven't seen them?"

"No."

He’s never seen any of them before. Louis's been gone. He sees that now. "I thought you were uh... um, watching. I don't know."

Louis doesn't seem keen on the subject change, and stays quiet while Harry asks,

"Where have you been?"

"You wouldn't like it,” he says under some jestering veil.

"How did you know I was getting married?"

Louis's stoic, playing it off as a carefree man. "They told me." That's so vague. Who told him? When? How? "And I said, 'Well he's only thirteen he can't be getting married. That's not true.'" And he shrugs, raising his brows above his narrowed eyes. "Well. It was. Whoops." Louis doesn't say enough and he knows it. Just chuckles like it's a boring subject and he's got nothing to say. But it's like static is in the room. Harry feels itchy with no real itch. Chest tight. "I forgot how time works. I wish I could go back."

Harry feels like he might cry again, feeling stupid again. Why wouldn't anyone be there for him? Why has he been cast astray? Harry lifts his shirt up higher, shifting so the fabric pinched behind his back will move up until he's exposed from the collarbone down. Grabbing his angel's wrist, he guides it upwards so he's focused on his chest. And Harry's red in the face, breathing a little harder when Louis's fingertips trace around his nipples. And he has to ask, “Can I really do this?” Something so defiling.

“Whatever you want, love." Louis insists a bit desperately under his raspy voice. "I want you to have everything. Do you want kisses? Kisses and cuddles, love?”

Harry nods, sighing as Louis squeezes over his pecs.

"Yeah?"

“I’ve never been kissed by an angel before." Like he’s confessing, almost childish. Like if it were a joke.

And Louis looks at him amused, almost mischievous. Harry’s too captivated by that. This everything. Smiling up at him.

Until Louis leans down to kiss him. A deep shiver races down Harry’s spine, making him tremble and stutter his breathing as he’s _kissed_ by an _angel_. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. Some tall power crushing him under and he could faint right here. Louis’s hand comes around his throat to press in slow, deep caresses all the way up to his cheek. Everything is so careful and gentle. Caring and defying everything Harry’s ever known. About God, about time. What’s wrong with Louis? This isn’t right and he knows it. Tilting his head so Louis kisses him deeper. So their tongues can come together in a more obscene display, and fill the motel room with the sound of wet lapping and breaths of bliss. Louis is becoming more passionate; hotter, harder friction. And then he pulls back suddenly with a quiet moan, hovering over Harry's lips, still.

“ _Look_ at you...” His hands run down Harry's body. Smooth skin rising up and down in heavy breaths. "You've grown so much."

“Are you here to help me?"

Louis's brows come together, his lips curved for the faintest scowl as he looks over the body he never got to watch bloom. The one he never got to grow with. And he shakes his head, muttering so scornful, "They left you so alone. I can just feel it more and more and it makes me angry."

Harry's eyes are shifting somewhere else, a doleful frown coming down on his face as his eyes gloss over in a thin, teary sheen. Louis feels so sorry for him, in all his sacred knowledge. Is he really that bad? Harry's felt so numb.

"Angry at meself and angry at everything. I’ve been so lost without you, Harry.”

"I've been... lost, too." Without Louis. Without the god he thought he'd found again. But Louis seems to have taken Him away. Sent Him off. Harry almost feels relieved. Because if he's honest, all he wants is this angel. God could never do this. _What am I saying? Take it back._ Tears welling in his eyes again as he furrows his brow.

"Me poor baby," he coos as he pets his delicately curling hair. "You're so sad, aren't you?"

Harry whimpers as he squeezes his eyes shut. Not knowing why. Hating that he does. Tears are sliding out the corners of his eyes and back into his hair. He wants Louis to see him destroyed and desolate. Whatever landfill he's made of himself.

Louis is overwhelming, insisting, asserting the truth he knows. "No one's been around to take care of you. Isn't that right, love?"

"Yeah..." he sobs, his eyes red around the emerald when he opens them. He trembles as he tries to keep quiet, still, calm like the man he's made of himself.

"I'm here." Louis promises, his eyes unmoving and his face so serene. Wingless angel, ethereal servant of Christ. Above this world, above Harry and holding all the answers he needs. Holding everything he could ever need. "I'm here now. And He wasn't there for you."

Harry's brow comes together, his eyes growing wide. He holds his breath to keep another sob from coming to the surface. How could Louis say that? So vehement; ignited like the reddened tip of a burning cigarette.

"I know He wasn't." He insists. "He didn't take care of you like He said he would."

Does God know Louis is saying this?

"He didn’t want me to love you."

And Harry doesn't want to say it because he knows he's wrong. But he says it anyway. "Nobody loves me..." And Eulaluis would have said, _'Do not weep, for the Lord is with you always._ ' Shapeless, formless and distant so Harry would know there's a greater power that reigns more precious than he could ever be.

"I love you so much, Harry," Louis whispers frantically, rubbing his hands up Harry's soft waist and kissing him. "I've loved you for an eternity." Louis presses his naked body against Harry's as his words turn to his native Latin. "Mea angelum. Mea amor tantum." Thrusting his hips against him as Harry spreads his legs. Cupping Harry's cheeks, angry that they're wet. With a deep frown, eyes closed, he hisses through gritted teeth. " _Maledicant Eun_. Ille tollens vos a mihi. Vos passus tantopere. Tantopere..."

"Louis..." Basking in his kisses and gripping onto his wrists. Overwhelmed at his guardian angel's hysteria, looking at him with eyes faithful to the love he's stifled and tortured for years inside himself in the name of goodness, in the name of God. "Louis..." Bringing this celestial being down by his shoulder, pushing his chest against his naked skin and mewling into his mouth.

"He doesn't love you," Louis confesses. And Harry doesn't know what to say, going on kissing him because he doesn't know what else to feel. Whimpering because he feels like crying and he never cries this much. "You know it's true."

Harry looks off to the side, wiping his eyes before anything can happen. His cheeks are already flushed. And he mumbles, "N... No..." Louis doesn't say anything, but Harry can feel how the air in the room changes into something tighter and heavier to pass through his lungs.

" _Marrying_ to appease Him?" Louis means to shame him with that rage he masks behind a brittle sneer. Can't hold it long enough to keep things lighthearted. And his face sets again. His narrow eyes hooded as they turn dark. "You're so stupid."

Harry looks up at Louis again. "I know he loves me..." Everyone is worthy of it. Harry isn't a bad enough person for God to ignore him with weight— or in fact, lack thereof. If everyone can feel God, why can't he? Why not him? "Why wouldn't he? What have I done that's so bad?"

But Louis doesn't answer his question. He's frustrated, gathering himself back into the apathy he can make of his own soul. "Where would you be if I hadn't come?" Louis asks, like if he were inducing something. When Harry doesn't answer he goes on on his own. "Alone on this bed, praying in the dark when no one was even fucking listening to you. Four Our Father's and forty-four Hail Mary's and _no one_ was listening to you, Harry." His eyes angry and growing bigger. "No one. Not even the angels waiting by for the sick to die just outside the fucking hall. _No one._ "

The quickening beating of Harry's heart feels like a crowd rustling up his throat. A weight sinking down onto his chest. And Harry stays quiet the way he always does, turned away from another godsent disapproval with a wrinkled brow. He doesn't remember Louis feeling this raw and heavy when he got angry. Angels are such stock things. Where did Louis go to change this much? "What about you?" His voice in that deep, tired drawl. And he comes to look at Louis now. "Where were you?" He dares ask.

It catches Louis by surprise. The angel off guard. His face softens like a dog casts down its ears in shame. Harry can feel the weight lift right off. And Louis whispers, "I couldn't." Shaking his head quick and quiet. "I— ...I couldn't. You know I would have." Leaning his head forward to give Harry a kiss to his cheek. "I'm sorry." And then more, and more in some fragile, vulnerable show of his undoing. And he didn't mean for that. "I'm here now."

"You're different."

"Do you still love me?"

Love. It sounds Earth-bound. Not that versed concept of impartiality that God insists is anything but lethargy after tiring from a six-day big bang. Harry always wondered if it was all an accident he never managed to get hismelf out of. Angels have no voice, no body, no purpose unless God gives it to them first. And Louis is shining as an independent light. In this dimly-lit motel room, in this forgotten little corner of Harry's world. Smoking, naked, tattooed, desperate, pleading— more divergent than he realizes he can kiss away. Louis's eyes are pleading for an answer. And Harry didn't realize his have been leaking tears for a good while. Probably why Louis keeps touching his face, and why he looks so sad. "You're in love with me."

"Of course." Of course.

"I always did," Harry tells him with a sniffle he tries to make as offhand as he can.

Louis wipes his eyes for him. "I came back for you." The softest, dreamiest kiss to his lips. Louis knows him so well. He's been there all his life. Harry's a flawed human being— of course he fell in love. Blinding himself to it.

"I love you." The first time he says it in this eclipse. Looks Louis in the eyes and smiles bright like the sun they both hide from. Louis's go crinkly and his cheeks redden in a giddy flush before he buries his face in Harry's neck. And he kisses down down, over the tender skin under his chin. And for the first time Harry feels Louis's hand over his groin. He draws a sharp breath in, jerking his hips up into the touch that Louis moves away just to tease. Squeezing the inside of his thighs, rubbing his soft belly and the fat on his hips. Louis's mouth comes down to Harry's chest to kiss in an even slower, teasing pace. And Harry reaches to pull Louis's wrist, giving a moan when he guides Louis's fingers to his mouth. Wet, warm. Louis curls them in, pushing in and out. Harry sighs before he starts to suck with eyes closed.

"You're such a good boy." Louis brings kisses down to Harry's hardened nipples. And Harry's whimpering softer around his fingers just because he can. Louis moves himself back up his body and kisses him, claiming his lips for himself again. His hand slides under Harry's briefs and he's grabbing a hold of his cock. Hard, dripping and neglected. Harry moans at the sudden intimacy, the harsh strokes. And Louis keeps touching him everywhere else to overwhelm him a little and make his legs spread more. His own cock stiffening against Harry's eagerness. "You've always been so good."

"Yeah."

"Always listened to me, what God wanted." Pumping Harry's cock good and fast. "I'll always be your guardian angel. I promise you. You're always gonna be me baby. Yeah?"

"Y-Yeah."

"I don't want nothing else. I'll always keep you safe."

"I love you," Harry whispers again. And that's all he wants to say anymore. Because he's abandoned everything else. "I love you so much." The emotion makes him bold, careless, vulnerable. Only Louis can take care of him when he rejects what it means to have control over himself, without having someone to put him in place. It's the attention he wants. Harry brings his hand to Louis's crotch and grabs onto his dick. Squeezing it, smiling with the bite of his bottom lip when Louis moans. And with his glimmering, soft eyes, he murmurs against his angel's lips. "I want you inside me."

Louis looks at him through heavy lidded eyes. Breathing quiet. Cocks his brow with a silent 'ah' and then a chuckle. "You're a virgin."

"1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 2. 'To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.'” And he laughs. “You taught me that one."

Louis laughs and dips down to kiss Harry fiercely.

“I remember every verse you ever taught me. You talked different back then.”

Louis’s expression thins into a smirk. His body is so hot he feels feverish, and Harry’s sweating right under him. “Galatians chapter 5,” he prompts with a sharp blink of light in his eyes. Bright like lightning. “19 to 21. Say it.”

Harry’s voice juxtaposes his baby face with that slow, brawny voice. It dropped down twice as far as Louis’s when he went through puberty three years after him. Prayer never sounded sweet coming from him. Never got to say morning prayer in school, or read from the Gospel of John or Philippians. His voice never suited anything but the Book of Revelation when they assigned him something to read before the class. He just sounded better saying bad things.

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are: adultery...”

Louis hums approvingly as he dips his fingers under the band of Harry’s briefs.

“...fornication, u-uncleanness... lav—lasciviousness, idolatry...”

Kissing down his neck while he pulls his underwear down his thighs.

“...witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations a-and... wrath, strife... s...” Harry’s words melt into a whimper before he can go on, lifting his head to look through half-lidded eyes as Louis settles himself between his spread thighs. Naked friction. Skin on skin. Harry gets a jolt of electricity on first contact, letting his head fall back again.

“ _Seditions..._ ” Louis hisses into Harry’s neck, going on to recite the word of God as he thrusts his cock slow against his ass. Through kisses, moaning sweetly, “...heresies, envyings, murders...” taking Harry’s shirt off to suck bruises into his skin, “...drunkenness, revellings, and such like.” In the sultriest of voices, bound in the darkest threads. “Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told in time past...”

Louis grabs Harry’s chin, guiding him so he looks him in the eyes in some daring agreement, forcing him into a moment of consciousness as they lock gazes, and Louis’s pupils grow to engulf his iris in blackness.

“...that they which do such things...”

Harry bites his bottom lip, thrusting his hips upwards against Louis’s cock.

“...shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

And he dips his thumb into Harry’s mouth, watching him suckle softly. His cheeks flared pink, his eyes glassy and wide.

“Mea peccatori...” in the Latin whisper of his most beautifully rendered transgression. “Mea _meretrixssssssss_...” in the echoed hiss of a meaty python on the prowl.

But it's a halo Harry sees in his eyes. Sex with an angel in a Nashville motel on the day before his wedding. Naked, sweating, sinning. It's _sin_ he commits, legs spread with a servant of God thrusting his cock between his legs. A real part of heaven on Earth and Harry is his to keep. Nothing could make him feel more blessed and fulfilled except for deeper depravity. Sex feels cheap and tacky but it's all Harry wants right now. What of the wedding? What of God? He just wants to get fucked. "Will you take me?" Breathless, trying not to close his eyes as Louis's cock drags over his balls. "Please?"

"I'll fucking _ruin_ you." Louis's skin is feverish. "I'll undo everything." He promises.

"Undo what?"

His sorrow? The pitted hole he finds himself inside? Louis doesn't answer. "I'll take care of you." However that will turn out to be. A little jingle comes suddenly, and Louis is laughing as he says, "Let me just take this." Lifting up his hand to reveal Harry's rosary with a playful grin. Him and his tricks.

"Next the rabbit from the top hat," Harry laughs.

"I could make money in Vegas."

"Look at you being so contemporary. What do you know about Vegas?"

Louis just pecks him on the lips with a smile, twisting his wrist until the rosary is wrapped around his hand. "Open your mouth." Harry's pink lips part, and with his thumb Louis pushes the rosary's crucifix into his mouth and onto his tongue. "Suck." Head against the pillow, Harry closes his lips around Louis's thumb and presses the cross against his skin as he begins to suck. Desecrating the image of God's favorite child. It's so cold in his mouth. He can taste the metal, the wood. Feel the ridged outline of Jesus impaled. His heart is racing. "Get it nice and wet..." Louis hums, stroking Harry's cock with his other hand to get him dazed. And Harry lets the drool gather in his mouth as Louis pushes in more of the rosary with his thumb, sliding it in and around until the beads come out dripping saliva down Harry's chin.

"Nh!" Something cold and wet wraps around his cock and he gives a hiss, lifting his head to look down between his legs. What Louis's done. Horrible and exciting as Harry's green eyes go wide. His cheeks are dark, his forehead damp already. "Oh God..." he whispers breathlessly.

Louis wraps his wrist around the rosary and twists it around Harry's cock tight once, twice and then a third time, and then around his balls. Harry's panting with his hands trembling against his chest. His dick is throbbing at the sacrilegious cock ring squeezing impossibly tight at the base of his erection. "Much better there. Hm?" And Louis rubs the crucifix against the slit of Harry's cock, all over the precum. Harry whines, brow furrowed at the pain, the feeling of watching that sacred object be so immorally desecrated on his own body making his head spin. This angel, still. God's servant is doing this. He's the one taking it to these heights. And Harry's dick throbs and aches at the pressure, bobbing up and down. "C'mere," Louis tells him. Harry's sluggish as he tries to move, and Louis laughs as he helps him sit up for a kiss. Savoring those pained whimpers, playing with the rosary beads wrapped around his erection. "Wanna suck me off?"

"Mhmm." With his bottom lip under his teeth, dimples in his cheeks. And he gets down on all fours on the bed until Louis's cock is in front of his face. The rosary dangles from his cock, dragging across the sheets and making him disoriented, his thighs trembling. And with that hazed, glassy look in his eyes he stares at Louis's groin, at the erection he sports. It's fat and long and stiff. Uncircumcised, unsurprisingly. Louis pulls the foreskin back so the head can graze against Harry's lips. And Harry holds back, letting himself be teased. Building up an appetite as he spreads his thighs and sticks his ass up.

"I made it nice and big for you. You've always been so insatiable." Louis gives a smirk, poking his cock against Harry's mouth. "Stuffing your face all the time."

Harry gives a little laugh, looking up at Louis as he gives the tip of his cock a kiss. And then another one, and then he gives the head a quick suck. He meant to wallow in only that for a little while, but he's that glutton he's denied all his life, deep down. So he can't help but grab Louis's cock, guiding the whole thing into his mouth with a moan as his eyes fall closed. His first cock. His guardian angel's cock. The excitement makes him moan deep in his throat as he sucks it hard, moving his head back and forth. Louis puts in the rest of the effort with the soft thrust of his hips. And Harry lets go, sliding down a little lower as he holds himself on his elbows. Louis moans quietly above him. Tall with his body propped upright, knees on the mattress. He looks down at Harry, touching over his hallowed cheeks and short hair. He's never seen him like this before— one of God's children and now he's all his own. Unclean and uninhibited.

"You're doing so good, love..." Praise. Rubbing his hand over Harry's head and down his back. Bends over a bit until he reaches his ass. Harry lets out a deep moan, and Louis feels the vibration down to the base. "Gonna stretch you out, okay?" And Harry moans, pushing his ass against his hand. Louis slides his fingers down until he gets to his hole. Harry pushes his face into Louis's crotch, his cock hitting the back of his throat and cutting off the air to his lungs. He gags and keeps himself still. Like the porn he's watched. And he brings his head back to breathe, tears in his eyes and his nose red. And he eyes Louis's cock before hungrily wrapping his lips around it again. 

Louis moans with a slap to his ass. "Fuck..." Bending his body down even lower, he lets his index and middle fingers soak in saliva, dripping onto Harry's back as brings them down to his tight hole. Can see just enough from there. The first finger goes in slow, bit by bit. And Harry lets out a whimper. Tight as he'd expected from a virgin. His first time, too. "You feel good?"

"Mhmm..." Harry moans around Louis's cock as he lets himself be stretched out. First finger all the way in. And it's when Louis twists the second one in, shoves it in and out hard— that's when Harry lets Louis's cock slide out so he can pant desperately, kissing his way up the shaft and licking his balls. He looks back over his shoulder with curved up eyebrows at what Louis's doing. A third finger squeezes inside him, and Harry's trying to breathe right, figure out how to multitask. He wants Louis's dick back in his mouth so he pushes his face forward again until he's gagging on it. Louis moans, eyes rolling back in his head as he shoves his fingers up and down inside Harry, putting pressure on his prostate as he twists and stretches him out with wet, frantic thrusts. Harry's getting louder in the loss of his focus, slurping on Louis's dick and moaning against it. The rosary jingles from around his aching cock with every backwards thrust he gives onto Louis's fingers. And he can't even thrust back in a pace anymore. A writhing, groaning mess. Until he can't even hold himself up right anymore. Harry pulls his head back to bury his face in the bed. Louis fingerfucks him faster, his weight pressing down on him as he drives him straight to it.

His orgasm. Harry grips the sheets hard as he goes stiff with a drawn out whine. And then his thighs quiver closed. His whole body is trembling. Louis grins in delight, pulling his fingers out from inside Harry and giving his ass a slap. And Harry lets himself collapse, rolling onto his back just so Louis can see the mess he made. Cum dribbled all over his cock and down to the rosary, where it drips off the beads and onto the bed.

"Made such a mess with that rosary. You came all over yourself."

"It felt so good," he mewls coyly, bringing his hand down to squeeze at the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. "Shit." Red-faced and teary eyed with the sheen of spit down to his throat.

"Here."

Harry looks up to see Louis's dick in front of his face again. Even in his high he wants nothing more than to have it in his mouth. So he turns his head to the side and parts his lips so Louis can settle his cock inside. Harry sucks on it with small, sleepy whimpers. His hands come to his chest to touch himself, squeeze his puffy, sensitive nipples as his eyes fall closed.

Louis takes it easy. "You're doing so good, Hazza..."

Harry only keeps the head in his mouth, swirling his tongue over the slit. And Louis strokes up and down his length as he keeps his eyes locked on the way his mouth wraps around him. His brow furrowed, breathing in through his gritted teeth.

"I'm gonna cum..." he pants as he grabs hold of Harry's hair. "Come on..." Coaxing him into sucking harder, a little faster. Harry does as he's told and looks up at Louis. He bobs his head a little more and whimpers louder, running his hands up and down his body. A grunt comes and Harry watches Louis's stomach clench as he hunches over, trembling as he groans. His eyes are glossy, fervent as he looks down. "That's it... "

Harry whimpers as warm cum starts to fill his mouth. In pumps, in pulses that run through the length of Louis's rigid cock. Harry lets each spurt flush into his mouth until it collects just enough for a satisfying gulp down his throat. Harry's own cock is hardening, growing around the tight grip of his sticky rosary.

"Good _boy_..." Louis praises Harry adoringly, proudly. Breathing in hard, sharp and slow through his gritted teeth. His gaze is focused, piercing past whatever goodness Harry casts. All gone. He lies down raw and unearthed, his lips rosy and gently wrapped around the head of Louis's cock, giving just the softest suckle as cum pours onto his tongue. It dizzies his consciousness. Louis's body is trembling as he holds back from pumping his cock, instead letting it spill over untouched to overwhelm him. Praise comes again and Harry feels his skin shiver. "That's it.... All of it..."

"Mmph..." Harry moans, moving his head gently as he suckles, drinks all that Louis gives him. And when it wanes until it's just droplets, he sucks a little harder to draw out what's left down his shaft.

"Get it nice and wet for me," he says, petting Harry's cheek as he pushes his hips forward. And Harry's so good at that. He lets the saliva in his mouth gather to trace over the length of Louis's cock. It slides out wetter after every thrust in, until the lamp light has it looking glossy and spit is sliding down the corner of his mouth. And that's when Louis pulls himself away, leaving just the tip in front of Harry's face so he can give it goodbye kisses. Harry looks up and Louis grins, rubbing over Harry's flushed cheeks and down over his lips with his thumb. "Got a good mouth on you. Shit." He chuckles, rubbing his aching balls as he bites down on his bottom lip.

Harry's lips are all flushed and pouty from cocksucking. His face is red, his eyes half lidded as he touches himself lazily. He swallows, chuckling. "My fucking jaw is sore."

"I'll be smaller next time," Louis teases.

"Noo~"

"Look at you."

Harry's eyes grow just a bit as he comes to be alert. Louis smiles down at him, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

"That's me boy."

Cheeky, ridiculous, audacious. Harry's grinning and rubbing over his face as he turns into the mattress. It does give him a sense of embarrassment in that moment. Or maybe an easy, passing breeze of melancholia, knowing he isn't a happy person beyond this in any sense. Everything God shrunk him down to, he's laying to waste in this moment. Maybe out of rebellion, maybe out of weakness. But it's a reminder that he's made a home out of everything he isn't. Praying in the dark, guarding silence and smothering his every fire until it dies. It's hard for Harry to feel guilty about what he's doing anymore. He hasn't felt this alive in years. "You gonna fuck me?"

And Louis teases him, tapping his wet, softening cock over his lips. "Some virgin."

Abstinent but far from chaste. And Harry's happy to admit it now, knowing it amuses Louis. An angel happy to see their human with no strings; illicit illustrations of repressed desires. Apple, pomegranate, fig, datura. Sin in genesis. Of spare ribs and snakes in gardens. "Can you get it hard for me again?"

Louis chuckles as he reaches for the pillow. "Want me to cheat me way through everything."

"Don't make me wait..." he whines with a pout, liking that he gets to do so.

Louis pats his hips. "Up."

And Harry lifts them, confused when Louis places the pillow under him. "What's that for?"

Louis just settles himself between Harry's legs, pushing his thighs as far back as he can before dropping his weight forward on top of him, propped on his hands. Harry laughs when he feels Louis's hard cock rubbing up against his hole. A kiss to his lips comes slow and hard. And he's spread out wide, his elevated hips making for the perfect angle for Louis to give him every inch of his member. Harry slides his hand down until he's fondling the sticky rosary beads around the base of his erection, playing with the crucifix as he rubs it up and down the length. Almost like he wants to impress Louis and he doesn't know why he would be. Doesn't understand because he isn't putting the effort. Too lazy. Too happy when his guardian angel laughs against his lips at how eager he is, at how much he's loving this. Angel, still.

Louis spits onto his palm, rubbing it onto his cock so it's even slicker, "Gonna push in, okay? You tell me when to stop."

"Yeah." Harry's face turns a a dark pink when Louis's wet cock is squeezing inside him. Slow, inch by inch. Bigger than his fingers, for sure. It feels different, how Louis's hips come closer against him and he doesn't want him to stop.

"You good?"

"Yeah..." in a whisper, his brow furrowed as he focuses on how much deeper Louis goes inside him for the first time. He slides out a bit and Harry whimpers. Louis kisses his neck, pushing himself in deeper again. He's moaning against Harry's skin now as he feels him up inches inside him bit by bit.

"You're so fucking _tight_..."

A shiver crawls under Harry's skin. Almost all the way inside him and he hasn't asked Louis to stop once. He just whimpers, too hazy to even touch his weeping cock. And then he feels Louis's hips against his ass, his balls pressing into his skin. His hips press forward just like that, pressure on top of pressure as he grinds into him.

"This is what you've always wanted..." he purrs.

"Y-yes yes..." Harry can feel that godhood throbbing inside him. Angel's cock, white-winged lover. He wraps his arms around Louis's back and brings him down so their chests are pressing together and Harry can get all the kisses he wants.

Louis slides his arms under Harry's knees until they're hooked over his arms, keeping him spread out. He slides out slow before he thrusts back in hard. And Harry cries out into his mouth, whining in bliss as Louis picks up his pace. "Only I can make you feel this way." Like fire, like electricity under his skin. Harry opens his eyes and looks into Louis's sharp, ardent expression. His strong jaw clenched, his pupils blown.

"James chapter 1..."

Louis grins down at him with the flash of his teeth.

"Verse 14 to 15..." he giggles red-faced, breathless, trembling. And he doesn't know why he said that. Why it slipped through the crack of his thoughts and fell past his lips as his angel fucked him.

_But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death._

Harry's eyes roll back in his head with a moan as Louis starts fucking him harder, devouring the skin of his neck as he bruises him. Like it turns him for Harry to speak scripture at a time like this. And Harry feels mad for doing it, thoughtless and depraved like an animal. There isn't anything to make him aware of a world beyond this. Physical pleasure; Louis's fat cock pounding inside him, the rosary tight and painful on his cock as it weeps down every Hail Mary and Our Father's bead. He feels like Louis's dragged him into a lower state of being. Lower than anything he's ever been. Hot, sweat-drenched and panting.

"Our Father," Louis moans through slow thrusts, "Like I taught you. I wanna hear it disgraced." And he lets his body come forward until he's pushing Harry's thighs down to spread him wide as he slams his cock down inside him so fast and hard it's knocking the breath right out his lungs.

Harry's under him, becoming dizzy at the words he speaks in a broken voice. "Our Father, who art i-in... heaven..." he squeezes his eyes shut, whimpering as he tries to speak the rest coherently, "...hallowed be Thy n-name..."

Louis kisses him, head tilted as their tongues slide across each other. Brings his head back and holds his weight up on his palms so he can watch Harry go on, bottom lip under his teeth as he thrusts.

"Thy ki-ing c— kingdom come..."

Dipping down for another hard kiss to reward him. Harry can't remember what he's saying by the time he gets to breathe again.

"Thy... will be done and..." He gasps when Louis goes harder, throwing his head back. Can't remember the rest "And... I-I..."

Louis loves how he's making him forget. How he's a making Harry into a mess blind to the faith he used to carry when God sent him an angel to keep him safe. Now he's getting it fucked out of him by that same guardian, until he's worse than a sinner and less than child of God. His head lifted now, panting silent as he watches Louis's fat cock slide in and out of him.

"Come on, love..." his angel coos. "Let Him hear you."

Harry looks up at Louis, who presses down a gentle kiss onto his lips until he's got his head back against the mattress again. Touching over his body, placing his hands around his throat and giving it a squeeze, enough to make Harry moan into his mouth and desperately grab hold of his weeping cock in his hand. "On earth, as— I... it is in... heaven...."

"You're doing so good," he smiles, his eyes crinkling until he's that golden, hypnotizing piece of heaven. He holds himself up high and holy, the muscles on his toned body rendering shadows off the motel lamp light. And Harry feels like he's praying to him.

"Give us this d-day our... daily bread..." nearly a whisper, his eyes glassy as he looks at Louis's body, "a-and forgive our us—" he shuts his eyes, trying to think, say it right as he whimpers, "u-us..." wrong again, "our trespasses and..." wrong again. Louis moans, leaning down to kiss his neck, "forgive those who t-trespass us..." Harry's praying all wrong, wrapping his arms around Louis's waist as he fucks him harder. Until he's outright moaning his heinous lust, "and lead us n-not into temptation..." panting, writhing as he throws his head back when Louis growls into his neck, "b-but deliver us from evil..." and Louis bites down, his whole weight heavy on top of him. Running a fever under his skin. Thrusting in hard and grinding his hips, his balls against his ass. Harry's voice cracks as he moans a shaky, "A-Amen..." And clenches his teeth when Louis reaches his hand between his legs and pulls on the rosary, the beads squeezing into Harry's cock until it hurts so bad that Harry's got tears in his eyes as he moans.

"Meretrix de Dei," Louis groans deep in his throat. Sharp-cut Latin again. Harry feels his words running through his blood. "Mea angelum..." Kisses him on the lips, tilting his head so it's deep and loud, just to leave a trail of kisses over his cheeks and on his throat. He squeezes Harry's cock, jacks him off with the stroke of the rosary. He moans desperately with the sharp, fast snap of his hips, "Meum in aeternum..." Palms flat on the mattress again, until he's clutching the sheets in his fists.

Louis's becoming reckless, careless, thoughtless. Drunk off Harry's cries of pleasure, feeding on how good he's making him feel. His grunts more rugged, beastly as he breathes out his nose and fucks Harry harder. The fabric under his fists begin to rip as sharp blades grow their way into reality, piercing down into the very mattress under them. And like the cherub he was to Harry at bedtime he guides him to his next prayer.

"Glory Be..." he growls.

Harry's eager to please, an angel in his own right. "Glory be to th... the Father and the— and to the Son..." He can't take his eyes off his angel. How he pants, how the sweat glistens off his body. His fringe sticks to his damp forehead, his eyes closed with the furrow of his brow. Harry gets off on just looking at him. He squeezes on his cock hard as he strokes it up and down. With his other hand he presses the crucifix into his balls, getting himself off through getting fucked. Pushing himself to the edge. But just to let go. Hands off himself with a whine as he trembles in his denied orgasm. "Glory be to the Father," he moans all over again as he lifts his head to watch Louis's cock slam in and out of him, "and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit..." Dropping his head back with a whine and eyes closed.

Harry couldn't have imagined sex would feel this divine. That this is the sin he'd been trained to deny. That God ruled this abomination feels unfair and selfish. Why would God punish him for this? The tears in his eyes from a moan-soaked union in sweat and love. God didn't care for the ones before. Harry almost resents Him. Rejects Him. Does he now? Has he turned his back? Harry opens his eyes to Louis again. His angel.

And time stops.

Still. No breath. No sound. Time melts down into a simmering shade of darkness. Harry swears he can hear a choir of angels singing in some veil blowing across reality. Fleeting and far. Dark. Like the fifteen-foot shadow cast across him on the mattress from behind Louis's back.

"As it was in th-the beginning..." he whimpers.

Guardian angel fallen.

Eulalius now cast down and forever an anti, banned from his own name he now bears inverted. Eulalius now Suilaleu in his inferno, Eulalius now Leu to the demons he calls his brothers, Eulalius now Louis to the man whose soul forever holds the pieces of his own he gave in ungodly betrayal. Harry sees him now as the curse God cast upon him in the flames that engulfed him when he ripped the wings from his back and threw him down to an abyss.

"I-Is now and... shall be..."

The black wings that grew in its place spread and hiding Harry from any goodness above. The black horns from the very top of his head twisting backwards in wickedness, the hair from his beard that goes down his neck and thickens into patches of fur going down his chest and his stomach until he's half beast below and his claws are piercing into mattress. What eyes sit behind his shut lids? Harry wonders. Black as the night? Red like fire? Yellow like a beast?

What he gets for defying. What he gets for diverging. What he gets for falling in love.

"...world without end..."

Not a person anymore. Louis unravels into what he really is and he doesn't even know it. These groans are from another place. Projected, transferred wrong.

"Amen..." Harry looks at him with his wide, glassy eyes. His cheeks burning red, his skin damp with sweat down to his chest as he whimpers. And Louis is immaculacy, still. His handsome Eulaluis. His guardian forever. He drops his weight on top of Harry and buries his face in his neck. Harry brings his arms up and wraps them around Louis's neck, cradling him against him as he fucks him desperately. "Cum inside me," he begs, knowing Louis is close. He can feel his horns against his fingertips, the tip of his twitching wings brushing against him. And Harry's never felt him so vulnerable. Sculpted in some fragile, hollow beauty. In love with him. Would do anything for him. Harry feels Louis's cock hitting a spot that feels like electricity in his loins, making him writhe and curl his toes. Doesn't touch his cock because he doesn't want to. He can cum just like this. "I love you..." He'll never love anything else. His eyebrows curve upwards as he holds his breath and his head drops back into the bed. His stomach clenches, his thighs quivering. And his orgasm rips right through him. Draws out a moan from down in his chest as his cock throbs around his rosary and spurts cum down his shaft for a second time. He feels weak and dizzy as Louis goes on fucking him. A panting mess as he holds Louis against him, nuzzling into the kisses he leaves on his skin.

And Harry feels it come as some euphoric, devastating affliction that stops his heart in his chest and draws out a whimper from the back of his throat. It's a demon that's cumming inside him, snapping its hips against his ass as it drives its cock inside him to breed fruitlessly. Harry feels every spurt, every twitch as cum fills his hole. It's as perfect as he imagined. Depravity threading through the heart valves, the composition of his soul, the cells in the bloodstream. Louis's body is heavy and wretched, his skin hot like he's burning from the inside. Spilling himself in all his wickedness. All his evil. He moans as he shutters, rocking his body against Harry until he's dry. Panting hard until it's only soft breaths and a whimper spared in between.

"They're yellow."

"Hm?"

Louis sighs quietly into his neck, bruised all over with hickeys. He pulls on the rosary on Harry's cock until it's loose, keeping it in his hands. And he pulls out from inside Harry. Cum starts dripping out and Louis can't help but bring his hand down to touch over it. Finger him, rub it into his skin. He pushes himself off Harry's body. Harry can see he's a man again. His skin is red and sweaty from his cheeks all the way down to his chest. Louis moves so he's lying down next to him, and Harry rolls over until he's at his side. Curled up against him.

"Me eyes." And Louis turns his head over. "You were wondering." Half-lidded like he's disoriented, sleepy, dreamy. "They're yellow. Like a snake."

And it's unspoken between them. Where God ends and the anti begins in each other. Louis curls his arm around Harry's shoulder until he's pressed against his chest. And he holds him there in his embrace. Tight-press. Kisses to his damp forehead.

"I don't want you to get married..."

All it was ever about. Louis wore God like the devil wore snake's skin in a garden. He heard the man he burns in hell for was getting married in the name of salvation, and was given a pass to roam the Earth for a single cause fulfilled in a one-time timeframe. Of blood-drawn contracts and forced possessions. But all he's done is waste time. When the sun comes rising the window of this opportunity will close and he'll cease with no qualms spared from above or below. For either of their fates. Louis won't say so. As if he were already defeated. Just as before, he ignores his agenda in favor of wandering astray. He's so soft in human skin. The air is so easy to breathe.

_Knock knock knock knock_

Louis and Harry snap their heads sideways to look at the door.

"Harry!" They knock twice again. "Harry, it's Gemma!"

Harry doesn't want him to go. "You said you'd stay," he whispers, pressing himself closer against Louis's body. It hurts when he hears,

"Nothing's ever been up to me."

What if Louis really did ever live in Doncaster? What if he sat through a session to get any of his tattoos done? What would his family be like? What would be his major in university? Harry could pretend if Louis just asked. He'd do anything. His heart is racing in his chest again and he feels like he might panic. The air is harder to take in and his eyes are burning behind their sheen. "I'll do anything." Harry pulls back, moving up Louis's body until they're face to face with positions reversed. Louis on his back. Harry looking down from above. And he begs, his hands coming down to touch over the hard dips under Louis's cheekbones, "I'll do anything, please..." Eyes more desperate than he could describe.

Louis's eyes are distant already, giving a smile that says he isn't anyone at all behind what he wishes he was. "Gimme a kiss."

But Harry furrows his brow, shaking his head furiously as his eyes water. "No."

"Come on," he whines with a chuckle.

And Harry pleads, "Don't." Shaking his head, pushing himself against Louis's chest as he presses their foreheads together. As if they still have a chance. And the door comes knocking again as if to agonize him.

"You're supposed to do what I say. That's how it works, innit?" The blue in Louis eyes has come back, the white now flushed in a dusty pink that shines by the lamp light. Can angels cry?

There's a fate so devastating and Louis is acting as if it isn't real. That terrifies Harry. The way he looks afraid and angry as he whispers again, "Please." As if it's possible. A childish ignorance so natural for a being of his low rank.

"Who's in there with you?!"

Harry's eyes go wide when he realizes his clothes are back on his body. Louis did it for him in the touchless blink of a second. The fabric feels so thick and heavy and Harry almost can't stand to have it on against Louis's naked body. It's an unnatural feeling. His heart is breaking. "No."

"Who's there?!" She bangs on the door, wiggles the doorknob. "Harry, open the door!"

Louis doesn't play fair. He brings his face up to steal a kiss from Harry in a flash.

And Gemma walks into the motel room at the cue of an opened door. On its own. Harry still on the bed, as startled to watch her suddenly enter as she is to find no one at the door that was opened for her. There's a sense of deceit that aggravates her immediately as she eyes through the room in suspicion. She was always clever. "Who was in here?" she asks as she closes the door behind her, now walking around to look behind furniture and curtains.

There's no one on the bed. The room has been left abandoned back to the single occupant that paid for a single night. Harry wipes his eyes and tries not to sniff, instead groaning as if he were tired. As if he'd been asleep. "What?" His heart heavy and hard in his chest.

"Don't lie to me. I heard a voice." And that's bothering her more than Harry realizes.

"No one was _here_." His voice is dark in his throat, his brow furrowed as he goes on rubbing at his eyes. He can't feel the afterglow of the moment he shared with Louis. Like he cleaned that up too. And Harry resents it. All he's left with is the memory waning into more of a dream.

Gemma doesn't like that she hasn't found anything. She'd been listening in since before she knocked. Heard Louis's voice, their hushed murmurs. She storms around now, wanting to validate her suspicions. Hates being wrong. But with a sigh she comes to a halt, pausing for a moment with the angry purse of her lips as she eyes the ground. "You know I've been texting and calling you for at least an hour." She's changed the subject.

It takes a moment for Harry to answer, turning his attention to his phone set by on the nightstand. He gets off the bed and walks over to take it in his hand. His phone was off. "I was asleep.”

"You smoke?"

"What?" He turns his head.

Gemma taps the tip of her shoe to the cigarette ashes on the floor.

"No I-I mean I— I was nervous.” And he doesn’t look at her when he lies, instead pretending to twiddle with his phone under the lamp light. “So I had one um... one. A smoke."

She guards silence to let him know she doesn’t believe him, and let him suffer a little in the humiliation. Her eyes are tired and dark, her blonde hair pushed back with a ponytail and a headband. It must be so late. "You've got Taylor all upset. She was crying about you running away and leaving her at the altar."

There's a tired, withdrawn expression in his eyes. "I told you I got lost. I was too tired to find my way back. I was coming back tomorrow morning."

And as he reaches to turn off the lamp light, it's there he sees a manifestation. A conclusion only plausible to his own faith, his own truth. A single moth smacking against the glass of the light bulb.

"Well they’ve sent me out to get you. Come on.”

Tiny and grey, fuzzy and flapping its wings in some wayward madness. Lost and confused without the moon to guide them. This artificial light behind glass deceives them. Harry wonders if, as Louis buzzes on as a moth, that same confusion will come to affect him too.

"Harry, come _on_."

Better turn the light off, then. Let him fly on home and let Harry go about his own way. He follows Gemma down the motel halls, paying off his stay before they walk out into the entrance where they wait on a cab. The sun is coming up. Almost 5am, she tells him with a two-minute nag. Harry has to lie and tell her he'd never dream of running away from getting married. But he'll have to go to sleep to see about that. He doesn't think he'll get any sleep tonight. No one's alive at this time of in Nashville, it seems. Harry looks back at the motel. He can't remember what room he stayed in. He wonders if Louis is stuck there. Or if he's watching him, still. Somewhere.

"Where's your rosary?"

"What?"

Gemma pokes Harry's exposed neck. Naked with only the hem of his shirt to decorate it. "It's gone."

Harry pats at the smooth surface of his chest, no rosary beads to put a bump under his touch. Sharp goosebumps scrape under his skin. "I left it at the hotel." His gaze unfocused as he looks on into some blind distance. "Before I left."

It's hard for Harry to imagine how things come to be. Abandonment is a subject that’s always made his skin itch and his head hurt. No fallen angel and no prayer bead to call his own. Harry suddenly can’t remember how it felt to have Louis so close to him; Louis once Eulalius when he was immaculate in his design and untouchable in what barriers he resided in. He'll always be Harry's angel.

Where did Louis go when he left for nine years? Harry can’t see things for what they are. Can’t see the the glowing iconography of his own tattered sainthood glowing around his head, or the moth that trails behind him after he gets in a cab to return to his fiancee.

 

  
_And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire._  
_—Jude 1:6 - 1:7_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave kudos and share with me your thoughts in the comments.


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